h which the board of Berney's
was laden. It was heavenly to sit once more in a comfortable chair in
a fire-warmed room and to have chicken and fresh bread and lemonade.

Martin was an orphan. His guardian, John Berrisford, to whose house he
had just come, was his mother's brother. His father had been most
things to most men, and despite, or possibly because of, his very
considerable ability he had achieved a rich versatility in failure. He
had started by being a captain of industry, or perhaps a sub-lieutenant
would be a more accurate description; but his complete inability to
remain awake in the office between the hours of two and four had put a
sudden end to his commission. On parting from his general he had said:

"It's no use your getting chaps from the varsity to give the show tone.
They won't work till they have had their tea." The general had sworn
and taken his advice.

Richard Leigh then discovered that he had been so damnably well
educated that there was nothing for him to do but think. So he thought
and wrote and went hungry. Now and then, to give his creditors a run
for their money, he became a commission agent or an architect or a
producer of plays. But he never paid very much in the pound. At the
time when he met Joan Berrisford, a young woman of property, he was
once more engaged in thought. She was beginning to feel the need of
permanence in her life and was quickly interested in his work and the
giant despair which he swore was the greatest of his creations.
Virginity bored her: Richard attracted her: possibly her conscience
stung her: for she was suddenly struck by the idea that she might repay
society for her dividends by rescuing for society an artist whom it
didn't want. Nowadays this would seem reasonable enough, because we
don't believe in democracy any longer and shower divine rights on
anyone who chooses to call himself an intelligent minority and make
himself sufficiently objectionable: but at the time when the incident
occurred Joan Berrisford was certainly thinking in advance of her age.
Everybody said she was a fool to pay any attention to the creature, for
she came of the class that thinks every artist has necessarily
something wrong with him. Only her brother John pointed out that
Joan's husband was, primarily, Joan's affair, and then, to her intense
delight, he had added that he didn't care twopence whom she married as
long as the rest of the family hated him.

The marria